


Bon Feu

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff and Angst, Gift Fic, M/M, Modern Era, Supernatural Elements, Wizards, based on Howl's Moving Castle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5534564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I also understand that the terms of employment must have seemed strange.”</p><p>What Will wanted to say was along the lines of ‘you have no idea’. What he did say was, “It’s fine.” Well, it wasn’t, really. It was still confusing and there was something about Hannibal, slinking just along the edges of his entire persona that set Will on edge, barring the desolate decrepit house they were in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bon Feu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrsSaxon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsSaxon/gifts).



> Gift fic for MrsSaxon/itsybitsylemonsqueezy on tumblr for the Hannigram Secret Santa exchange! Hopefully you like it! :D This was going to be a oneshot, but the more I tried, the longer it got. Now it's set for five chapters and I'm rolling around here wondering why I did this to myself. That's not necessarily a bad thing. ;D
> 
> Like the tags say, this is very much going to be based off of Howl's Moving Castle, moreso in book format than movie, although there's definitely a few movie elements thrown in just because it's one of my favorites. This is also totally unbeta'd, so I'll probably go back through at some point and keep poking and prodding around until I like it. I kind of think it has a rough start, but I'll do my best to smooth it out later on. ;w;
> 
> Enjoy!

“A fickle heart is the only constant in this world.”  
  
\---  
  
Will’s hands moved on their own accord, twisting their way through wires and magnetically avoiding sharp edges, guided by years of experience. The tips of his fingers were black with motor oil, and he most certainly had streaks on his cheeks and forehead from attempting to wipe away the sweat of the deepest part of a Louisiana summer. The only sounds he could hear in his methodical, meditational state were the low hum of crickets and the soft lapping of water.  
  
Fixing boat motors wasn’t the best job. Most people could say that despite the job they had, it could at least pay the bills. Will couldn’t say that, at least judging by the pile of white envelopes on his kitchen table. What he could say was that he liked his job. It stemmed the riot in his brain for a few hours, and it was far preferable to being a parish cop, at least if the starburst scar on the back of his shoulder had any say in it.  
  
But no, it didn’t pay the bills. It managed the groceries in the best weeks, but the thought of his car payment still made him sway a little in anxiety. He wasn’t particularly worried about being homeless and living out of his car, but what he would do with his dogs was what made him nervous.  
  
At the thought, Will heard a distant bark and then the familiar clicking of a tag on a collar. Before he knew it, Winston was at his side, sniffing insistently at the back of Will’s head.  
  
“Hey,” Will said before holding up one greasy hand. “I’d pet you but you just had a bath yesterday.”  
  
Winston didn’t seem to care, still snuffling his way over Will’s ears and jaw before licking his face.  
  
“Okay, yeah, I still need a bath,” Will conceded. “Thanks for that.”  
  
His thoughts idled their way through the rest of the repair job, mulling on the idea of a roommate or... no, just a roommate. Someone to help with bills, mostly. He wasn’t going to lie to himself and say that the thought of someone being there to quell some of his darkest thoughts didn’t appeal, but he knew better. He wasn’t the dating type, and judging by the way some of the people in town looked at him, he wouldn’t have had many takers as it was. It would have to take a miracle for someone to be there for him _and_ handle his emotional baggage.  
  
Will wrapped the last loose wire with a piece of electrical tape before leaning back on the sun-bleached dock and wiping his hands on his jeans. The bayou still hummed with summer energy, heedless of how he was feeling.  
  
The world wasn’t going to stop for Will Graham.  
  
...He needed another job.  
  
\--- ****  
  
Bon Feu Plantation was something of a well-known enigma in Lafourche Parish. If one was to go by the sensationalist documentaries on TV or the dozens of glossy-covered paperback books on the subject, the plantation was as haunted as haunted could be. It had its Lady in Grey, stories of pre-War torture and intrigue, whispers in the hallways, faces in the curtains, and what ever else seemed to come standard to a house that size. Granted, it had lay abandoned since a poor attempt at resurrecting it as a bed and breakfast in the 1960s, so stories were bound to accumulate about it as it lay with paint peeling and windows shuttered.  
  
The enigma wasn’t just about the ghosts that supposedly stalked its entirety. It was more along the lines of why it had been _bought._ Someone had gone out of their way to purchase the property, despite the fact that if there was ever a picture to go along with the phrase _money pit_ in the dictionary, Bon Feu would have been the archetype.  
  
A more personal enigma was why there was an ad in the local newspaper asking for help with the place.  
  
Will had probably read the ad ten times. He had cut it out and had it up on the refrigerator, and his fingers had hovered above his phone, prepared to call the number and ask for details. But every time he tried, the image of the ancient, decaying place flashed across his brain. The cop in him was instantly suspicious, provided that the ad had been very vague about what was needed. The other part of him looked between the ad and the pile of bills which had since expanded, and then spared a guilty look to the pack of dogs hovering nearby, all wagging tails and lolling tongues.  
  
In the end, he called.  
  
To some relief, a bright-voiced young woman answered the phone.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
Will bit his lip and pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose before he spoke. “Hi, I’m calling about the ad for the Bon Feu plantation? It was in the--”  
  
“Oh! The newspaper ad!” she finished, and the distinctive noise of shuffling papers echoed behind her. “Awesome! You’re interested?”  
  
“Uh, sort of. I’m not entirely sure on the details. I’d kind of like to get those clarified before--”  
  
“Ugh, I _told_ him to put more in it before he sent it,” she interrupted again, and Will got the distinct feeling that the girl was a bit scatterbrained by nature. “Sorry about that, Mister... Um...”  
  
“Graham. My name’s Will Graham.”  
  
“Pleasure to talk to you, Mr. Graham,” the girl chirped in reply. “My name is Mischa Lecter. My brother bought the house a few months ago and it’s kind of proved to be an... effort.” The way she said the last word sounded like the understatement of the century, and he couldn’t ignore how flat it sounded. Clearly, she wasn’t especially impressed. “Anyway, yeah, it’s been kind of an issue getting the place cleaned up and fixed, since it is sort of out in the middle of nowhere.”  
  
“So you need help with construction?”  
  
She paused before he heard her snort. “And then some. We’ve been really trying to source local help. Kind of giving back to the community. You know how to wield a hammer?”  
  
“I think so, yeah.”  
  
“You ever work a floor buffer?”  
  
“Once or twice.”  
  
“Change the batteries in a smoke detector?”  
  
“...Yeah?”  
  
He could hear the grin in her voice. “Then consider your resume submitted, Mr. Graham. As long as you’re not afraid of heights, you’re all set.”  
  
The more analytical, logical part of Will cringed both inwardly and outwardly. “I’m sure there’s been more qualified people that have applied,” he said, trying not to sound petulant. She seemed far too excited about hiring someone who hadn’t even offered details about his own professional experience.  
  
“Actually...” She trailed off before clearing her throat. “Would you believe you’re only the second person to call?”  
  
“Did you hire the first person?”  
  
“No, he showed up to be interviewed and I think he might have been either drunk or stoned or both.”  
  
Considering the general area and the people in it, Will wasn’t especially surprised. “Oh.”  
  
“Mhmm. So long as you don’t show up here drowning in a bottle of tequila, I think you’ll do pretty well. And, oh! Almost forgot! Any professional experience?”  
  
“I fix boat motors,” Will said flatly, still feeling on edge, despite how friendly she sounded. “I was a cop before then.”  
  
That didn’t seem to deter her in the least. “Cool! My brother’ll probably like that. When are you available to stop by?”  
  
“Pretty much any time, honestly.”  
  
“Saturday at noon-ish?”  
  
“That’ll work.”  
  
“Awesome. See you then, Mr. Graham!”  
  
They both hung up and Will was left standing in his kitchen, still staring at the ad, and trying to snuff out the feeling of absolute foreboding that had decided to nest in the pit of his abdomen.  
  
**\---**  
  
Will guessed that part of the reason that hardly any Lafourche residents applied at the plantation was that most people not only knew its reputation, but also knew that it was legitimately out in the middle of absolutely _nowhere._ It took nearly a half hour of navigating an ungodly labyrinth of dirt roads and dead ends to finally find the front gate, a rusted twisted iron mess that denoted exactly what kind of state the rest of the place was in. Even then, the narrow road leading to the house itself was half-faded back into nature, and Will found himself worrying about driving headfirst into the swamp by way of misstep.  
  
The plantation house appeared like a ghost in the midst of the cypress trees and spanish moss. It was an enormous sprawling creature made of gray and white stone, and Will couldn’t help but compare it to a mausoleum in design. It certainly looked as cold and unfeeling as one, even though its design was amazing. The columns supporting the roof were so well-detailed that any architect worth their salt would have absolutely swooned. There were floor-to ceiling windows facing outward, some boarded in plywood, others newly replaced. On the second floor was a balcony facing the driveway, edged in iron fencing bent into a myriad of complex shapes. Four chimneys rose from the roof, although one of them had started to crumble to nothingness. Overall, the impression Will got was that it was a tilting, aged mess of an amazing house, and it was probably haunted.  
  
There were some signs that someone had recently moved in. Two moving vans were parked near the western side, and beside them, oddly enough, was a sleek black Bentley. Around the house were ladders and work benches. Apparently, Will had come on an off day, since there wasn’t a single person in sight.  
  
He pulled up next to the Bentley, and as soon as he closed the car door behind him, the front door opened and out sprang a young woman, hustling towards him. He took a quick inventory of her, her blonde hair pulled up into a hasty bun, a paint-splattered gray t-shirt with faded lettering faintly reading ‘Pendragon  & Jenkins Antiques’, and pastel blue pajama pants decorated with overly-cute bunnies. She thrust a hand out to him, her nails painted bright violet, and grinned at him with an impressive wattage smile.  
  
“Will?”  
  
“That’s me.”  
  
“Sweet! I’m Mischa. I’ll show you around before we talk. Just watch for loose nails and stuff.”  
  
She bounded back up the stairs to the porch and held the door open for Will. He walked in to the foyer, obviously mid-construction, although its grandeur was still apparent. There was faded gilding on the off-white paneling, and evidence of teak herringbone flooring was still visible. The scale of the room alone was breathtaking, and its flaws only just barely took away the impact. The light fixtures had recently been stripped down to sockets or loose wires, so the only light came from the windows, rendering the entire room in a dismal shade of gray.  
  
“Sorry about how it looks right now. It should pick up here in the next week and hopefully the foyer will be done by the first of next month,” Mischa rambled, starting to walk towards the right side of the room. “Plumbing’s done, at least, so you won’t have to worry about that. Electricity’s still a little dicey at the moment, and the gas hasn’t been hooked up yet.”  
  
She led him through the hallway leading away on the left side of the room. which could have been better described as a gallery dedicated to power tools at that moment. A fireplace was stripped down to brick, and the flooring had been ripped out to the studs. Eventually she led him to the kitchen, which was faring far better than the rest of the house.  
  
The flooring had obviously just been replaced, as had the cabinets, which still had the distinctive smell of new wood. There was a sink in place, although it hadn’t been secured yet, and there was a gaping space where the stove was going to go, although a stainless steel hood was already put in. A marble-top island had also been put in, although it was littered with a few empty Chinese food boxes and a bright green can of Pringles.  
  
“We’ve kind of been living off of takeout, which is driving my brother up a _wall,_ ” Mischa explained, clearly amused. “He’s big into cooking for himself, and everything else is _pure garbage,_ ” she finished with a mimicked accented deep voice, wrinkling the bridge of her nose. In apparent spite, she opened up the Pringles can and fished out a few chips.  
  
“Where’s your brother now?” Will asked.  
  
“Other side of the house, his bedroom, I think. Probably counting the threads in his sheets to make sure they’re still like five thousand count or whatever,” she replied with a grin. “You won’t see too much of him anyway. But yeah, the house is pretty much yours to explore. We got most of the flooring replaced so you don’t have to worry about falling through to the cellar or something.”  
  
Curiosity momentarily got the better of Will. He leaned against one of the counters, crossing his arms over his chest and giving the kitchen another cursory once-over. “So what made you buy a place like this?”  
  
“Sheer madness,” Mischa said with a laugh, and then shrugged. “Seriously, I don’t know what got into my brother, but he wanted this place something awful. We used to live in Baltimore before this, and he just got... fixated, I dunno. I’m not really the person to ask.”  
  
“Is he planning on actually living here?”  
  
Another shrug. “Probably. I mean, he’s investing an arm and a leg into it, and he’s not really the type to try to make a bed and breakfast.”  
  
The image Will was getting of Mischa’s brother was confusing. He didn’t know whether to think of him as the CEO type, an aristocrat, a mad scientist, or all three put together. He didn’t get much more time to think on it before Mischa’s phone went off in her pocket. She glanced at the screen before sighing. “Sorry, it’s the guy from the construction company. This might be awhile.”  
  
Will nodded while she answered it, going into a mantra of alternating ‘yeah’s and ‘mhmm’s. Only once did she pause, glancing at Will before conspiratorially smiling and mouthing ‘you’re hired’.  
  
Will had never been so confused in his life.  
  
**\---**  
  
He started work the next Tuesday, when the weather saw fit to douse everything with a torrential downpour. The makeshift driveway was a horrible mess of mud and puddles, and the bottoms of his jeans were already stained two inches up from the hem. Mischa had managed to snag his email before he left from his ‘interview’ (and he could only loosely call it that). By Saturday night, she had emailed him a more thorough job description. Once he really absorbed it, he realized that he was a glorified housekeeper. There were some construction jobs, sure, but almost everything else was dusting and buffing and what ever else the Lecter siblings saw fit to throw his way. But above that, Mischa finally sent him the pay information. He would be paid hourly, the standard eight hours, including lunch, for three days a week. What drew his attention was his wage, almost _twenty_ dollars an hour. That had sent him outside, having to pace the deck for a moment with his dogs nervously following him. When the coil that had apparently sprang in his stomach settled down, he offered up a very rare prayer to whomever might be listening that he wouldn’t somehow lose his job after one day.  
  
Apparently, between Saturday and Tuesday, the enigmatic construction company had returned for a short period, just enough to give the foyer a firm coating of sawdust. Mischa left him a note in the kitchen saying she would be running errands in New Orleans for the day, but her brother would be somewhere in the house.  
  
Will spent part of his morning getting better oriented with the house. It was just as massive and sprawling as it seemed on the outside, and Mischa’s cursory three-room tour did him few favors in giving him a sense of scale. After its abandonment, many of Bon Feu’s rooms had been left empty or as makeshift storage. There were still water-rotten crates of god only knew _what_ in some rooms, and other rooms had evidence of animal occupation. Will certainly had his work cut out for him, but at twenty dollars an hour, he would clean the whole place from roof to cellar if he had to.  
  
He decided to start with the coincidentally named housekeeper’s room on the second floor. It was the size of a regular bedroom and had a cobweb-filled fireplace that really would have been very elegant if all the smoke damage was cleared away. Will appropriated some cleaning products from the construction company, including a mop, bucket, and floor cleaner. It took him a good while to find a decent pair of rubber gloves, but as much as he was used to getting his hands dirty, the threat of tetanus was enough to make it a necessity.  
  
By noon, he was engaged in a sparring match with some stains on the wood of the mantelpiece. In his head, he had already composed a list of all the things he would need to ask Mischa for, including a power washer. If she and her brother could give him nearly two hundred dollars for a day of work, let alone afford the entire house, they could certainly afford decent cleaning products.  
  
His right arm had started protesting the gratuitous use of elbow grease when he heard the door open. For a moment, he expected either Mischa or maybe someone from the construction company, but the voice that met his ears was far from either expectation.  
  
“You seem to be working hard,” a man said. His voice was low, breathy, curling with a lilt suggesting a country Will couldn’t place.  
  
Will turned so fast he nearly fell back into the bucket, but caught himself on the edge of the fireplace. An older man stood in the doorway, nearly expressionless save for the barest twinkle of amusement in his eyes and the slightest tug at the corner of his lips. He was handsome in a way that Will could only mentally describe as ‘classical’. Sharp cheekbones, hooded eyes, good grooming. Despite the complete disrepair of the house, he was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and vest that seemed to be (and probably _was_ ) tailored just for him. Even his black trousers seemed utterly free of dust and dirt, and his shoes shone fresh.  
  
Will didn’t realize he was gaping until the man cleared his throat and nodded to him. “Pardon my rudeness. I certainly should have introduced myself before. My name is Hannibal Lecter.”  
  
Still gaping. Will had to mentally kick himself back into gear. “Oh, uh...” He stood up and went to offer his hand, but forgot that he was wearing the world’s filthiest rubber glove. Immediately, he retracted his hand and nodded back, feeling flushed already. “Will Graham. Your... housekeeper?”  
  
“Ah, yes. Mischa did say something about you. A pleasure, Mr. Graham.”  
  
It was hard to imagine the two were siblings at all. Hannibal cut a figure like a world-class Armani model, whereas Mischa looked like a struggling art student fueled by too much espresso. That still left the conundrum about why someone like Hannibal would want a house like Bon Feu at all.  
  
Hannibal seemed to read his mind, or at least had far more social grace than Will did. He took a few steps into the room, glancing around with an appraising eye despite the fact that he had probably seen it several times before. “I understand that our purchase of this home might seem... unorthodox. I thank you for stepping forward to the advertisement.”  
  
Will nodded again before turning back to the stain on the fireplace. “You’re welcome, I guess.”  
  
“I also understand that the terms of employment must have seemed strange.”  
  
What Will _wanted_ to say was along the lines of ‘you have no idea’. What he _did_ say was, “It’s fine.” Well, it wasn’t, really. It was still confusing and there was something about Hannibal, slinking just along the edges of his entire persona that set Will on edge, barring the desolate decrepit house they were in.  
  
There was a highly uncomfortable silence that passed between the two of them, permeated only by the soft scrubbing of Will’s semi-violent attack on the fireplace. Finally, Hannibal cleared his throat again and adjusted himself enough so that the floorboards protested. “I did mean to come in here not only to introduce myself formally, but also to give you a more... formal job description.”  
  
Will stopped scrubbing and tossed the sponge back into the bucket, where it sank into disturbingly gray water.  
  
Hannibal shifted again with another creak of the floor. “I hardly expect you to see after the affairs of the entire house. There are plenty of rooms and it would be a Sisyphean task to ask you to clean all of them while the house is being renovated. That being said,” he went on, glancing to the single window letting in dreary light. “I would simply ask for your help in part of the moving process, to make it easier on Mischa and myself, and to help us arrange and clean the rooms as they are completed. You don’t need to do... this,” he finished, gesturing to the fireplace. “If you don’t want to, that is.”  
  
Will frowned, pulling off the gloves one at a time and flexing his fingers to get the cramping out. “Why didn’t you just hire a moving company?” he asked.  
  
The look on Hannibal’s face was so hard to read that attempting to decipher hieroglyphs would have been easier. It was a peculiar mixture of amusement and utter foreboding and menace, while somehow coming across as only mildly threatening. And for that matter, his expression was gone just as quickly as it came. “We did hire one for things like beds and couches. However, there are more... _delicate_ things that need to be handled, and I would sleep far better at night trusting someone Mischa personally chose handling them.”  
  
Again, what Will wanted to say and what came out were two totally different things. ‘Mischa just sort of hired me on the spot’ and ‘What kind of things?’ morphed into, “Oh, okay.”  
  
“The only thing I ask is to avoid my personal quarters,” Hannibal concluded, and the way he said it made it sound as if he had cordoned off a section of an illustrious castle rather than an ancient plantation two hurricanes away from collapse. “If not for any other reason than I would much prefer to set my own things. I will call on you if I need assistance.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Will said, rolling his bad shoulder to ease off some of the tenseness. “Just, uh, point the way for me and I’ll be all good.”  
  
Another moment of silence, and Will got only the most uncanny feeling that he was being thoroughly assessed. What ever Hannibal was searching for, he either found it or didn’t, and he was at peace with it either way. He nodded toward the window, the outside landscape abstract with the streaks of rain. “There are a few boxes in the back of the moving man closest to the house. If you would carry those to the second floor parlor and unpack them, I would be grateful.”  
  
“Sure,” Will replied, standing up straight and picking up the bucket of disturbing water so he could dump it back outside, possibly killing a patch of grass in the process.  
  
He walked past Hannibal who stood aside at the doorway to let him through. And he thought Hannibal muttering, “He’ll be a good fit here.” By the time Will got to the bottom of the stairway, he wondered if Hannibal had said anything at all.


End file.
